IF you would get PAID $1,000 for every mile, how far could you go on foot tomorrow?

But it's a whole day. Come on. We can all at least go that much. Some random guy who doesn't even look like a runner ran around the perimeters of BK a few weeks ago. Over 50 miles. Slow like 10 min/mile but for it's $1000/mile.

I haven’t run a single mile in the last 2 years, but I would immediately take this opportunity to grind out as many miles as I can.

I’d probably average 3 miles/hour, and this payout would dwarf most race prize purses.

32 years ago I was in the last couple miles of the Pittsburgh Marathon when spectators started telling me that I was in 8th place (female). I thought OK, that's not bad. Then a spectator yelled out "8th woman! And number 7 is right ahead of you!" I squinted into the distance and indeed could make out the next woman ahead of me. She wasn't impossibly far ahead and I knew that 8th place was worth $2K and 7th place was good for $3K. I told myself I should go try to catch her for $1,000. And then I had a revelation: even though $1,000 was really quite a lot of money for me at that time in my life, it wasn't worth $1,000 to turn myself inside out to try to catch her. I just kept plugging away and finished happily in 8th place.

Now, as a broken-down 65-year-old, I don't know how many miles I could ambulate in a day--probably quite a few still, but mostly walking. I do know that once I started to get really tired, the money wouldn't help me keep going.

I could drop 100 easy with that kind of incentive. I assume it's a nice day, I can run on flat ground, and get people to bring me food and water.

10 miles or less is ridiculous for anyone who’s not seriously impaired. OTOH some of these respondents are probably throwing out bigger numbers too casually.

I have to deal with chronic injury concerns in my left femoral neck area and that would keep me from running many of the miles and generally be a limiting factor. I think I could make it 50 but beyond that I’d probably be frighteningly achy, plus plain tired. There’s a chance I’d crap out earlier than that to avoid certain injury—after all I’m not in the habit of covering more than 12-13 miles on my feet these days.

So 7am to 12 am is 17 hours. How far would depend on the terrain and access to basic things like water and food. If I assume there is the ability to refill water and the ability to get food along the way (I can usually carry about 6 hours worth in my pack) as well as it not being brutally hot or humid or at high elevation.

If it is a flat course on the road then probably somewhere between 70 and 90 miles. I havent run a flat enough trail race for that period of time to know how far i would be able to go on flat trails. In similar times on mountainous courses i have gotten between 60 and 70 miles.

I did 21 yesterday, 14 running and 7 hiking with 1000+ feet vertical. And that was just an ordinary Tuesday for an old man, so I think 85 is not unreasonable. I'd be very tired, but I'd also have a fat payday!

100 would be pretty do-able right? That's 4 miles per hour

I mean, at $1000 a mile this equates to $4-7k an hour for any decent runner. That’s a tidy sum. I’ve done sub-24 mountain 100s so I’d like to think I could do over 100 on a track at low altitude, but I’ve never tried. Aerobically, my HR would be under 110 for 9:30 miles on a track at low altitude. In theory that should be sustainable for 17 hours. But as anyone who has endeavored past 50 knows, something mechanically usually goes wrong, or your stomach goes bad and you can’t eat. And that’s what slows you down, not fitness. So my answer is 100-120 on a good day. 85 if things go awry (which they probably would).

In that 7am to Midnight time frame, even with 20 extra lbs I'm carrying around these days, I could easily cover 75 mile in those 17 hours. "Run" the first 25 in 5. The second 25 in 5.5 and the last 25 in 6.5 hours. You don't realize how slow a 6.5 hour marathon is. I've literally done a 5:25 marathon and our goal was to do the second half as slow as possible. Even running probably 1/4 of a mile every mile for the last 13 miles, sitting for probably 10 minutes chatting with friends and drinking 4 beers, we still did the second half in like 3:40.

Your kind of post is one of my least favorite on this website. So typical for someone to say, "Who would click on this kind of stupid thread and post about this? Nobody cares!" Do you not see the irony there? You literally clicked on the thread AND posted. Yet somehow you added nothing of value. Not to mention that because you are the second post, which everyone will read, you made the whole thread feel negative. Can you at least admit that?

And to answer the question, I know I could go 40 miles or so, so that is $40,000. If my life were on the line, I bet I could do 50 or maybe 60 miles. I don't think I could do more than that. My experience out over 30 miles tells me I am not cut out to be a true ultra-runner. 100M, for example, seems utterly impossible.

You haven't done an ultra, have you? Think of it like push-ups. Anyone can do 10 push-ups in a minute. Just do that for 24 hours. Super easy. It is almost too easy, right? Oh, wait. After like 1 hour your arms just lock up. You can't do even one push-up.

It is the same with running. The pace isn't the problem. Your legs just can't run no matter the pace. You could probably walk though, but you can't do 4 mph walking.

I haven't done an ultra, but i've done a good amount of 2+ hour trail races and have done my share of 100+ weeks.

My strategy would be to run super slow early and bank some 5-6 mile hours. I figure i could do that for 10-12 hours. Walk the rest.

I'm not saying easy, but do-able to for $1k/mile.

Well, I have hamstring tendinopathy and did a 22 mile long run in about 3 hours last month to test the waters for a possible marathon attempt (decided it wasn't worth it in the end). I'd say I could run 80 miles in one day but my tendon attachments would be fkd.

LOL if anyone believes that the Pittsburgh marathon was paying $3,000 to the 7th place woman in 1992.

Here are their prizes for 2024:

Don’t know why you have downvotes. Most people would walk all the way until their legs give out.

It’s not hard to go 24 hours without sleeping. As long as I have water I would run in splits of 5k and then walk until I feel 100 and repeat until I hit 30km -50 . whatever my body can handle. Humans have covered distances like 50 miles in a day in survival situations with no food and little to no water. As long as I have water I’m confident can hit 100 miles in 24 hours.

I can't make you believe it, but it is true. I was astonished to win $2,000 for running a 2:51 marathon, even in 1992.

FWIW, I ran three marathons under 2:50 in 1991 and won zero dollars. I just got very lucky at Pittsburgh.

I think an interesting thing to consider is whether or not to just walk the whole time. Like most, I know I'm not capable of running for 17 hours (7am to midnight) but I think I could probably walk that long or close to it. Then there's thinking about running and walking at times. Do you try to run when you can, take walking breaks, and just kinda wing it? Or do you try to calculate what kind of shape you're in and how much recovery you need, and maybe run a long way at first, walk an hour or two, then run again? If I ran some, would I be able to cover more ground overall, or would I wear myself out so that my walking would hurt more and I'd slow down overall? Probably most trained people could get away with some running.